Fallow Deer in Florida by Graybeard

Fallow Deer in Florida

My wife Faye and I left our home near Jacksonville, AL at about 6:15 AM on the morning of September 19,1997 to meet Chris Williams and his brother Todd at Chris' house near Oxford. We all departed in two vehicles for Florida at 7:30 AM arriving at Carter's Pasture at 3:00 PM EDT. As soon as we arrived, Mike Carter was rushing us to get our clothes changed and get out gear in his truck. He said we were on "HIS TIME" now. As soon as our other hunting partner, Robert Day arrived from his home in Mobile, AL and changed we were off to hunt.
Mike took me, Chris and Robert to his farm about 30 miles from the lodge where he had told us his oldest and best fallow deer were located. He put me in a climbing stand among oak and chinaberry trees overlooking a pond on my right and a large stand of planted pines on my left. I saw a lot of deer that first afternoon but no shooters. There were fallow, whitetail, and axis deer in the area. I had an eight point whitetail and three does feeding and loafing around for about an hour. That was a real test of my ability to remain still and quite so as not to spook them. Chris was in a tripod stand and Robert was in another climbing stand. They were at other spots on the perimeter of the large stand of pines where the deer were bedding and hiding. Todd was placed on a stand near the main lodge and killed a meat hog on his 17th birthday. Faye was placed on a stand for observation only and saw a number of large hogs and a nice white fallow buck. Mike picked us up a little before dark and we drove around the property looking over the deer and discussing our strategy for the next day.
We were in our stands again the next morning well before daylight. I was in the same stand overlooking the pond and Chris and Robert had switched stands. When daylight finally arrived I could see several deer feeding and milling about in the woods around me. I watched them and looked them over in detail through my binoculars trying to find a shooter in the crowd. Mike had assured us that there were several very high gold medal bucks in this area, I was beginning to doubt him. At 7:15 AM, I saw a large= buck approaching from my right front from beyond the pond. He joined the other deer in the area and began feeding. I looked him over closely with my binoculars and decided he was what I was looking for. He had tall antlers with lots of points and even more importantly he had wide palms that carried that width along about 12" of antler. I carefully rested the Pachmayer forend of my TC 7X30 Waters on a rubber coated hook I had placed in the tree for that purpose and fired a single shot from about 75-80 yards. The Sierra 130 SSP took him through the left shoulder and went through both lungs and broke the next to last rib on the off side and came to rest under the hide. The core and jacket were separated but were found together under the hide. The jacket showed a perfect mushroom and had given good penetration considering it went through the shoulder bone and two ribs. The buck fell in his tracks and never moved. While waiting for the guide to pick me up I sat around watching the deer and squirrels moving around me. At about 9:00 AM, I heard something splashing water in the pond. I looked and saw a group of fallow deer. There were three that were truly monsters, I have no doubt that any one of them would have been very near a new handgun world record. I sure was wishing I had money to take another but knew I didn't.
We later put on a drive through the pines with Chris and Robert stationed at places we hoped the deer would use as an escape route. This worked fairly well with Robert taking a running shot at another large buck about the size of mine. He wounded it and we had a heck of a time chasing it down and getting him the finishing shot, but he was able to do so later in the day. We had spent so much time chasing around after it and had the other deer so spooked that it was decided Chris would have a better chance of taking his deer at the pasture near the lodge. He was placed on stand there for the afternoon and eventually was able to take a nice buck on its way to a water hole just before dark. His buck was not as large as mine and Robert's but was taken with his new TC 44 Mag on his first handgun hunt. Robert had used his S&W 629 Classic to take his buck.
Faye was placed on stand early in the morning and head guide Tracy stayed with her to tell her when to shoot and which hog to take. This was her first hog hunt and only her second successful big game hunt. She was able to take a good meat hog using her Remington Model 7 in 7MM-08 with a single shot high on the shoulder that took out a piece of spine and dropped it on the spot.
Later that afternoon while Chris was out to get his deer, Tracy took me and Faye to a stand site they call the kitchen as this is where he usually gets the meat hogs for the lodge kitchen. Robert was on another stand near us. We had several meat hogs and some axis deer and a long bearded turkey feeding near our stand. I had wanted both me and Faye to be able to shoot at the same time and take two meat hogs but we couldn't get clear shots at the same time that wouldn't endanger the nearby deer and turkey. She told me to take the shot since she had taken a hog earlier that morning. I used my 7 X 30 again and dropped the hog with a single shot to the heart. Our hunt was over. Robert failed to get a hog that afternoon.
Mike Carter has a very nice rustic lodge which is comfortable and roomy. The trophy heads above the fireplace are ample testimony to the caliber of animals he has on the place. Head guide Tracy and cook Larry were great guys who really know how to take care of their guests. Mike Carter works really hard to make sure his guests get the animals they come for, but really needs to learn how to slow down and smell the roses. In his defense, we were on a very short time schedule due to my hunting partners' need to get back to work/school on Monday morning and we wanted the biggest, oldest and smartest fallow deer he had on his ranch. This is a place where you can have a good time-take a nice trophy and spend a lot less for the quality than most anywhere else I know.